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HIGHWAY SURVIVAL
Each student is assigned a Mitsubishi in Russell Racing's highway survival course.
BY DIXIE JORDAN
Photos by Dixie Jordan
© Copyright
2000 by Parents' Press
THE PLAN
Enroll a teenage driver in the half-day "highway survival" course at the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School, then follow him or her around with a camera to document the training.
THE REALITY
After losing two young volunteers in a row to a virulent flu, I showed up for the course myself rather than reschedule for a third time.
Although there is no upper age limit for the class, many of the participants are high school or college students whose parents have signed them up.
As an empty-nest mom who could qualify for AARP membership, I was definitely the oldest driver in the class and probably the most nervous.
THE SKILLS
The course is divvied up into three main sections: emergency braking with standard and ABS brakes; skid control; and high speed steering and lane changing.
Each student practices each skill repeatedly, at different speeds, and gets individualized feedback after each try. At the end of the day, you put them all together in a timed autocross race.
THE FEAR
Out of the classroom and onto the course after a half-hour of blackboard instruction, I was assigned to a group of three student passengers in a Mitsubishi Gallant.
Our driver the braking instructor accelerated like a bat out of the netherworld, braked like he'd hit a concrete wall, and changed lanes with a couple of impossibly right-angle turns. His three students managed, barely, to avoid losing their respective breakfasts. I considered quitting right then.
I considered it again a few minutes later, when he announced that now we the unnerved students would practice the same maneuvers, each of us in his or her own car.
